After deliberately spending much of January and February close to home, recording and mixing material for our new album, it felt like a nice return to business as usual as we got back in the car and on the road again for our first gig of 2014.
Very kindly, when a slot became vacant to support Keith Donnelly at Ely Folk Club, Club organiser Ruth Bramley extended us the invitation to play. Having last worked with Keith at Bromyard Folk Festival six months earlier, this seemed an excellent way to renew both our acquaintance with him and with Ely Folk Club.
Once we had managed to escape a traffic-clogged St Albans, the journey to Ely was quick and we arrived in plenty of time to tune up, chat with club regulars and catch up with Keith’s news before the evening started. It was certainly very nice to see the club in its new surroundings – a nice sized room with drinks available from a nearby pub..
In advance of a forthcoming extensive series of gigs, the evening afforded us an opportunity to try out live some new material we had been working up and recording. In particular, it was a first outing for some new Asturian dance tunes.
As always with a support spot, the time on stage flew by. At half time and the end of the show, we were congratulated by a number of those in the healthy sized audience. Particularly pleasing was the very positive response to our own songs in the set, Navajos and Pirates and The Garden of England. Fast and furious as they are, the new dance tunes also earned us a whoop or two at the end.
Keith was on good form with his songs, stories and jokes. Sadly, with the very final guitar flourish of the first half, he ripped a nail clean off his right index finger. It was clearly a very sore injury and he was in considerable discomfort. However, trooper to the end, he quickly put together a second half of strummed rather than picked guitar, a cappella and storytelling content and, though in obvious pain, kept the audience well amused until closing time.
Many thanks to all at Ely Folk Club. The surroundings may be new, but the welcome was just as warm as always.